The always excellent BPS Research Digest recently riffed on new research suggesting that humorous advertising short circuits our brains' built-in BS detector. Funny advertising has a long history, of ...

Advertising is about attracting, holding, and focusing attention, and nothing gets our attention like a funny TV spot. But funny is a double-edged sword. Why do so many advertisers use humor in their ...

One in five TV ads are funny, and Super Bowl ads are three times funnier than the rest. But none of this makes much difference in selling stuff, according to new research by syndicated ad-testing firm ...

Two Fridays ago, I posted the "World's Top 10 Sexy/Funny Beer Ads." Since many of you apparently enjoyed that, I thought I'd re-post some similar ads from the wild and woolly world of car advertising.

Certainly, says Angela Seits, managing director of strategy and insights at PMG. And Seits has the brain scans to prove it – or at least, bods at neuro-marketing agency Neuro-Insight do. “You can ...

Advertisers that primarily limited their messages to somber or patriotic themes immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are having some fun again. Sight gags, word games and other clever ...

Did you hear the one about a funny ad winning at Cannes? Neither did we. In fact, during last week’s virtual Cannes Lions festival, only one obviously humorous ad took home a key prize. This was the ...

I'm wondering if maybe the reason people stopped buying cars in the U.S. is because car ads in in U.S. are so incredibly dull. If they're ads for sedans or coupes, they show happy buyers in the ...

John Caples, the legend in direct-response advertising who wrote the famous "They laughed when ..." ads, had strong feelings how to sell stuff with jokes. And his feelings boiled down to this: Stop ...

Remember when Old Spice was king? Isaiah Mustafa’s baritone bravado and charm in the “Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ad generated hundreds of millions of views and become a cultural touchpoint–it was ...

It’s funny how commercials work. Or rather, according to a new study, it’s funny how some ads succeed in making viewers chuckle, but ultimately fail in what they’re supposed to do—entice couch ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I research ad fraud and digital marketing. Let me start with a simple question — when was the last time you deliberately clicked a ...